Synopses & Reviews

Review:

"Through a series of tiny, radiantly moving vignettes, award-winning memoirist and poet GonzÃ¡lez (Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa), a first-generation Mexican-American, has created a memoir through the lens of his hungers — for food, motherland, recognition, acceptance, passion, and love. Interspersed among these short prose pieces are piedritas, which GonzÃ¡les explains as the bits of debris that, as a child, he had to sort from dry beans before cooking 'to be tossed at the conclusion of the cleaning.' With their complexity, gleam, texture, and strength, he thought them 'much more interesting than the beans, which huddled in the bowl, boring as clones.' In this book, they are represented by poems that function like arias, interrupting the narrative to express pure feeling in the present tense. Piled one upon another, the stories and poems paint a kaleidoscopic, painfully truthful self-portrait, like the 'dazzling forest museum' made of junk by an old woman that GonzÃ¡lez stumbled across in a trip to Switzerland, 'gathering bits and pieces of this and that in order to build a gallery of tiny gems, colorful and edible as gumdrops.' Immigrant and gay readers may experience release in the book's agonizing familiarity; all readers will find it lusciously evocative." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Synopsis:

Rigoberto González, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, takes a second piercing look at his past through a startling new lens: hunger.

The need for sustenance originating in childhood poverty, the adolescent emotional need for solace and comfort, the adult desire for a larger world, another lover, a different body—all are explored by González in a series of heartbreaking and poetic vignettes.

Each vignette is a defining moment of self-awareness, every moment an important step in a lifelong journey toward clarity, knowledge, and the nourishment that comes in various forms—even "the smallest biggest joys" help piece together a complex portrait of a gay man of color who at last defines himself by what he learns, not by what he yearns for.

Synopsis:

About the Author

Rigoberto González is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose and the editor of Camino del Sol: Fifteen Years of Latina and Latino Writing. His memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa won the American Book Award, and he has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a contributing editor for Poets & Writers Magazine, serves on the executive board of directors of the National Book Critics Circle, and is an associate professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.

"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Through a series of tiny, radiantly moving vignettes, award-winning memoirist and poet GonzÃ¡lez (Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa), a first-generation Mexican-American, has created a memoir through the lens of his hungers — for food, motherland, recognition, acceptance, passion, and love. Interspersed among these short prose pieces are piedritas, which GonzÃ¡les explains as the bits of debris that, as a child, he had to sort from dry beans before cooking 'to be tossed at the conclusion of the cleaning.' With their complexity, gleam, texture, and strength, he thought them 'much more interesting than the beans, which huddled in the bowl, boring as clones.' In this book, they are represented by poems that function like arias, interrupting the narrative to express pure feeling in the present tense. Piled one upon another, the stories and poems paint a kaleidoscopic, painfully truthful self-portrait, like the 'dazzling forest museum' made of junk by an old woman that GonzÃ¡lez stumbled across in a trip to Switzerland, 'gathering bits and pieces of this and that in order to build a gallery of tiny gems, colorful and edible as gumdrops.' Immigrant and gay readers may experience release in the book's agonizing familiarity; all readers will find it lusciously evocative." Publishers Weekly Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

"Synopsis"
by Firebrand,

Rigoberto González, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa, takes a second piercing look at his past through a startling new lens: hunger.

The need for sustenance originating in childhood poverty, the adolescent emotional need for solace and comfort, the adult desire for a larger world, another lover, a different body—all are explored by González in a series of heartbreaking and poetic vignettes.

Each vignette is a defining moment of self-awareness, every moment an important step in a lifelong journey toward clarity, knowledge, and the nourishment that comes in various forms—even "the smallest biggest joys" help piece together a complex portrait of a gay man of color who at last defines himself by what he learns, not by what he yearns for.

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